2008 is kind of a year of change for my astrophotography. I am downgrading the material a bit and will try to make hopefully nice astronomical images with less investments in equipment (mind, even then especially deep-sky astrophotography is not very cheap!). An example is the comet Holmes image of January 2, which was made with a used Vixen Super Polaris mount and a modified Canon 20D camera. Including portable PC, total investment cost of the equipment for this image was around 1500 euro, just to show it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

I still have a special CCD camera, the ST2000XM, since a monochrome 16 bit device is the only type which allows me to image from Ghent. A modified DSLR like my Canon does not penetrate light polution as good as a dedicated monochrome SBIG camera. I choose the ST2000XM because I have had great experiences with it's larger brother, the STL4020 the previous years. But at half the price, it will largely do for my needs in Ghent with perhaps 10 to 15 nights a year statistically free of clouds and work.

For longer focal length deep-sky photography, I picked up a used 6" Intes Photomak. For short focal lengths I found a used ED66 refractor - made in Taiwan.

Planetary photography was initially done with a 1995 Celestron 8 of excellent optical quality but as it was too close to the Photomak, so I upgraded once more to a C9.25 - a scope known for its superb sharpness. Weight is getting important too: setting up everything for an hour or two on my tiny balcony asks for lightweight stuff. Better a smaller scope that gets used than a larger one which sits most of the time in its trunk.

Of course, all these are obviously good intentions made January 1st, so definitely subject to change during 2008 :)